Death in Twenty Languages
by Caidreabh
Summary: Sara remembers first encountering death and coping with it the best way she could—with facts.


Title: Death in Twenty Languages  
  
Author: Laura/Caidreabh  
  
Category: Sara POV  
  
Rating: PG  
  
Summary: Sara remembers first encountering death and coping with it the best way she could-with facts.  
  
Disclaimer: I don't own CSI or any of its characters. I just have some fun with them now and again.  
  
Author's notes: The title popped into my head first, and I came up with a plot to go along with it. Big thanks to Amber, Andi, and 'Arita for being my wonderful betas for this story. I've never used betas before, but after my last story and a few factual errors I made, I decided not to take any chances. Enjoy!  
  
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Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Passing on. Leaving this life. Going to a better place. The Eskimos may have had twenty-four words for snow, but they never avoided talking about it.  
  
So it's no wonder that my conversation with Jane's- wait, no, Syna's- family was so awkward. They stopped me in the hall, and her husband asked for directions. "We're here for her," he said.  
  
"Oh, you're picking up her body?" I asked innocently, as if it were the most normal thing in the world, because, around here, it is.  
  
They stared at me in disbelief-all three of them, her husband, her mother, and her father-like I had broken some incredible taboo. I could feel their eyes drift from my disheveled hair, which I had actually spent time on, twelve hours ago, to the deep bags under my eyes, to the dirt under my fingernails. Well, I thought, I'm sorry. I made a mistake. But I haven't had sleep in three days because of your daughter, your wife. The bags under my eyes are from all the overtime I've put in on her case, and the insomnia from letting her assault play dozens of times in my head when I'm awake, in my dreams when I'm trying to sleep. The dirt under my fingernails is from the alley where her desecrated body was found, from when I went back twice yesterday, just to wonder what really happened that night. And if you think you're the only three who will never forget her, you're wrong, because I won't, either.  
  
I led them down to the morgue and slowly pushed open the swinging door, making sure not to seem too hurried or insensitive. Doc Robbins was in the middle of an autopsy, and he looked up at the four of us as we entered the ghastly room. I gave him a warning look, but he had done this everyday for years and had the presence of mind to be more tactful than I had been. "Are you here for Syna?" he asked, as if they had come to pick up a child from daycare. Her mother nodded. Doc Robbins led them over to her body and carefully uncovered her body for her family to see. I hung back, taking unwarranted interest in Grissom's hit-and-run victim on the autopsy table. I stole a look at the family looking over their loved one's dead body. Her mother was asking, in broken English, "How did it happen? How did she die?"  
  
Not knowing how else to respond, Doc Robbins answered, "She received multiple blows to her head with an unidentified blunt object."  
  
Not understanding what he had said, Syna's mother pulled out a small Spanish/English dictionary and, grief-stricken, flipped through four of five pages, searching for an unknown word. Doc Robbins was about to try and rephrase his conclusion when Syna's husband softly chocked out a translation of the diagnosis, trying not to make any eye contact or betray the despair on his face.  
  
I quickly looked back at the autopsy, afraid that they would realize I had been watching them. Déjà vu didn't happen to me often, but just then, I had been taken back twenty years.  
  
My grandmother had just turned ninety. We had a cake for her with nine candles: one for every ten years of her life. Then, five days later, she was six feet under.  
  
I wasn't especially close to her, but I remember lying on my bed in my black dress-one of the only dresses I recall ever wearing-- after her funeral, just thinking. Later, I rode my bike to the library, still in that black dress. Somehow, the library seemed like the only place that hadn't been changed by this new complicated part of life that I wasn't able to comprehend. And it infuriated me that there was something I, the math wiz and the winner of all the spelling bees at school, couldn't understand. I sat in front of ten or twelve big, thick dictionaries until the library closed, leafing through them, emblazoning that one word on my mind, trying to pin it down and make it stick. Death. I taught myself that word in twenty languages that day, and I still remember every one. Mort, muerte, morte, tod.  
  
Shortly after the family left, Doc Robbins walked back over to the autopsy table, snapping on a new pair of gloves.  
  
I looked up at him. "Did you know," I said, "that the word 'death' comes from the old English word 'deeth,' which probably traces back to the Latin word 'mors?' In the romance languages, the word much more closely resembles mors. It's one of those times English is weird."  
  
"You sound like Grissom," he said, and smiled. "I'm thinking that this was a straightforward hit-and-run. Honest mistake that this poor kid was run over. Driver panicked," he said, assuming that I was curious about the body on the table.  
  
"Bueno," I said. "Diré Grissom."  
  
I left the morgue and ran down the hall to catch up with Syna's family. I felt the need to apologize, and for once, I knew exactly what to say.  
  
"Entiendo su pérdida, prometo que éncontrar el asesino -- aunque ningún número de años que él podría desempen'ar servicios en cárcel substituiría siempre Syna."  
  
"I understand your loss, and I promise that I'll apprehend the killer-- although no number of years he could serve in jail would ever replace Syna," I said. They turned around, surprised. Embarrassed, I looked down at my hands. "Please let me know where you bury her. I'd like to visit."  
  
Her mother looked straight at me, and I could see that she had been crying. "Le diré," she said.  
  
I half-smiled and thanked her. Turning around, I heard those twenty words repeating in my head. I shook my head, trying to make them go away. The language didn't matter. It still felt the same. 


End file.
